Fic - From The Ashes of Disaster (3/?)
Mar. 14th, 2010 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99Author: Red Fiona
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters, Spyglass Entertainment do. No money being made.
Pairing: Quinn/Creedy, eventually. Some Creedy/OFC in the first part.
Rating: M, especially later on.
Spoilers: None. Prequel to ‘He Who Fights Too Long Against Dragons’ - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/471485.html.
Notes: Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice is all his. I'm just borrowing one speech.
Part 1 is here - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/589916.html
Part 2 is here - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/598026.html
Summary: In the ruins of Britain, humans still try to eke out a living where the dragons cannot find them. A band of roving bikers arrive in the remnants of Birmingham, both sides have to try to reach an agreement.
Rebecca dumped him two weeks after he’d decided to stay. His first thought was to get on the bike and chase after the others, but he had no way of knowing where they were and it was almost impossible to survive out there on your own. There were feral dogs, roaming gangs and the constant possibility of hypothermia and starvation. He was stuck here and knew nobody.
The bikers had been his only company for years, and he’d have to start all over again with these people.
It wasn’t that the people here weren’t trying, they all felt sorry for him with regard to Rebecca but they didn’t know what to do with him, they all had their own lives and positions to maintain.
How he missed his old life. It had been Declan who’d pulled him out of the metaphorical rubble after Glasgow burnt down. Creedy had pulled himself out of the actual rubble on his own, but it was Declan who dusted him off and gave him a new life to replace the old one. Then again, if Declan hadn’t died in that crash, would Creedy have left the gang? Creedy would have been the first to admit he didn’t get on nearly as well with Deacon and, obviously the accident had changed the gang’s whole dynamics. Bloody stupid patch of ice!
There was nothing left except to follow Declan’s original advice and pull himself together and get on with it. There had to be a place here for a strapping lad such as himself, even if it was just digging and looking mean. However, Birmingham was still big enough to deter most raiders so it wasn’t like travelling, where one of you always had to keep a watch, so it was more likely to be digging that he would be doing.
The middle of winter wasn’t the time for that so Creedy was mostly helping Quinn check over the farm equipment read ready for spring. It was most a bit of spit and polishing but one of the ploughs needed a complete overhaul. Creedy could hear Quinn muttering over the engines. Normally what he said made basic sense; looking after his own bike meant that Creedy had made up for years of inattention in any lessons to do with engines, but what was quite so funny is that this time it wasn’t anything to do with pistons or carburettors, but it was Quinn making an absolute hash of act three scene one.
“’If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you, ‘... oh what’s the use, I’ll never remember it.”
“If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”
“There’s no way that you memorised all that.”
“See, I’m not just a pretty face.” Creedy’d been alright at English, back when it mattered.
“You’ve got to come along, to English Lit at least. It’d make the Prof so happy to have one person who’s any good at it. No one else seems to give a damn and I’m just flat out terrible at English.”
Creedy mumbled something at the floor by way of an answer. Quinn was always tried to get Creedy to come along to some of the lessons seeing as Creedy wasn’t actually all that much older than the oldest kids in class, but Creedy still wasn’t happy with the set up there, and was doing his best to pry Quinn away from the school at every available opportunity.
Because of all of that, Creedy didn’t take Quinn up on his suggestion, and had to deal with a couple of weeks’s worth of evil glares in response. He wondered if he’d gone too far the day that Quinn didn’t turn up at all. Creedy wasn’t sure what to do with himself in Quinn’s absence. He had been paying attention, but he couldn’t work over a whole tractor on his own.
It was then, as Creedy stared at the opened up tractor engine, that the Prof ran in, face flushed, breathing like he’d run a marathon. The Prof managed to gulp out a message in between gasps.
“He’s,” gasp, “gone off,” wheeze, “fight,” gulp, “six of them,” shudder, “woods. Help him.”
Creedy raced off.
There was an overgrown old factory, derelict even before the dragons came, that was used for bunking off, ‘relaxing’ and general misbehaviour. It was normally one of Creedy’s favourite parts of Birmingham, but not right now. Because he didn’t doubt what the Prof had told him, and while Quinn was probably the sort to attack people head on, most other people weren’t and there were far too many places here where people could jump out at Quinn.
Also, the floor was covered in broken glass; some of it had been melted and blunted by dragon fire but most of it was still there and sharp, ripe for cutting people with.
Creedy grabbed a likely looking plank of wood, white paint peeling off it, as he scanned the surrounding area. No sign of them, no sight, no sound. He stood still, trying to register any possible place they could be. There were enough trees and thick bushes for them to hide behind, Creedy could look for hours and still not find them.
It was Jimmy Mizzen’s sneezing that gave them away. They were in a small copse of trees, and Quinn was at the edge of a circle of boys, being pushed steadily back. The moment one of them broke, they’d all pile in on Quinn.
Creedy wasn’t sure what to do. If he went charging in, it’d probably just make it worse. No, better to pretend to be there on an errand. He still kept hold of the battered plank though, better to be safe than sorry.
Creedy pushed away the tree branch he’d been hiding behind. “Ah, there you are Quinn. Been looking for you everywhere. Come give me a hand.” Creedy turned to face the rest of them. “You don’t mind me stealing him, do you?”
Of course, they couldn’t say they minded so they let Quinn go. It was only a temporary solution, but at least it was working for now.
~~~~
Creedy walked Quinn back to the tractor garage.
“Were you trying to get yourself killed?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Quinn’s face betrayed nothing.
“Yeah, right. I suppose the Prof was just imagining that there was going to be a giant barney.”
Quinn had the decency to look mildly ashamed. “He wasn’t supposed to know. It wasn’t like they were going to win.”
“There were six of them!” Quinn stared at his shoes. “Don’t get into fights like that.”
“It’s easy enough for you to say, it wasn’t you that they were ... I didn’t ask for your help.”
“You don’t have to. What you do have to do is know that whatever they were saying was to get a reaction out of you. They wanted you come chasing after them.”
“I know.” Quinn had taken the bonnet off the tractor and was starting to fiddle with the engine to make himself feel better. He was pulling hard at the parts, taking his frustration out on them. “The things they were saying about the Professor though. He doesn’t deserve that. He’s a good man. The only person here that is.”
“He can look after himself.”
“No, he can’t. He’s got to pretend that he can’t hear them and it makes me so mad.” Quinn threw a spanner across the room, where it hit the red brick wall with a clang too dull to be satisfying. “I wanted to smack the stupid smiles off their smug, fat, little faces. Because he’s the one keeping us going and he shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of fucking nonsense.”
Creedy was shocked. He’d been on the terraces and got through school so it wasn’t like swearing bothered him, it was that he’d never heard Quinn anything harder than damn before, not even when he’d dropped a whole box of pistons on his foot.
“I’m sure it’ll be alright.”
“I don’t think it will be, and it’s all my fault,” Quinn had gone to pick up his spanner and put his head back into the tractor’s engine compartment. Whatever the reason he felt so guilty, he didn’t want to talk about it, and Creedy wasn’t going to push him, because all pushing would do would be to make him clam up tightly and totally, and Creedy got the feeling that once Quinn had decided on something, his mind stayed made up.
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters, Spyglass Entertainment do. No money being made.
Pairing: Quinn/Creedy, eventually. Some Creedy/OFC in the first part.
Rating: M, especially later on.
Spoilers: None. Prequel to ‘He Who Fights Too Long Against Dragons’ - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/471485.html.
Notes: Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice is all his. I'm just borrowing one speech.
Part 1 is here - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/589916.html
Part 2 is here - http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/598026.html
Summary: In the ruins of Britain, humans still try to eke out a living where the dragons cannot find them. A band of roving bikers arrive in the remnants of Birmingham, both sides have to try to reach an agreement.
Rebecca dumped him two weeks after he’d decided to stay. His first thought was to get on the bike and chase after the others, but he had no way of knowing where they were and it was almost impossible to survive out there on your own. There were feral dogs, roaming gangs and the constant possibility of hypothermia and starvation. He was stuck here and knew nobody.
The bikers had been his only company for years, and he’d have to start all over again with these people.
It wasn’t that the people here weren’t trying, they all felt sorry for him with regard to Rebecca but they didn’t know what to do with him, they all had their own lives and positions to maintain.
How he missed his old life. It had been Declan who’d pulled him out of the metaphorical rubble after Glasgow burnt down. Creedy had pulled himself out of the actual rubble on his own, but it was Declan who dusted him off and gave him a new life to replace the old one. Then again, if Declan hadn’t died in that crash, would Creedy have left the gang? Creedy would have been the first to admit he didn’t get on nearly as well with Deacon and, obviously the accident had changed the gang’s whole dynamics. Bloody stupid patch of ice!
There was nothing left except to follow Declan’s original advice and pull himself together and get on with it. There had to be a place here for a strapping lad such as himself, even if it was just digging and looking mean. However, Birmingham was still big enough to deter most raiders so it wasn’t like travelling, where one of you always had to keep a watch, so it was more likely to be digging that he would be doing.
The middle of winter wasn’t the time for that so Creedy was mostly helping Quinn check over the farm equipment read ready for spring. It was most a bit of spit and polishing but one of the ploughs needed a complete overhaul. Creedy could hear Quinn muttering over the engines. Normally what he said made basic sense; looking after his own bike meant that Creedy had made up for years of inattention in any lessons to do with engines, but what was quite so funny is that this time it wasn’t anything to do with pistons or carburettors, but it was Quinn making an absolute hash of act three scene one.
“’If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you, ‘... oh what’s the use, I’ll never remember it.”
“If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”
“There’s no way that you memorised all that.”
“See, I’m not just a pretty face.” Creedy’d been alright at English, back when it mattered.
“You’ve got to come along, to English Lit at least. It’d make the Prof so happy to have one person who’s any good at it. No one else seems to give a damn and I’m just flat out terrible at English.”
Creedy mumbled something at the floor by way of an answer. Quinn was always tried to get Creedy to come along to some of the lessons seeing as Creedy wasn’t actually all that much older than the oldest kids in class, but Creedy still wasn’t happy with the set up there, and was doing his best to pry Quinn away from the school at every available opportunity.
Because of all of that, Creedy didn’t take Quinn up on his suggestion, and had to deal with a couple of weeks’s worth of evil glares in response. He wondered if he’d gone too far the day that Quinn didn’t turn up at all. Creedy wasn’t sure what to do with himself in Quinn’s absence. He had been paying attention, but he couldn’t work over a whole tractor on his own.
It was then, as Creedy stared at the opened up tractor engine, that the Prof ran in, face flushed, breathing like he’d run a marathon. The Prof managed to gulp out a message in between gasps.
“He’s,” gasp, “gone off,” wheeze, “fight,” gulp, “six of them,” shudder, “woods. Help him.”
Creedy raced off.
There was an overgrown old factory, derelict even before the dragons came, that was used for bunking off, ‘relaxing’ and general misbehaviour. It was normally one of Creedy’s favourite parts of Birmingham, but not right now. Because he didn’t doubt what the Prof had told him, and while Quinn was probably the sort to attack people head on, most other people weren’t and there were far too many places here where people could jump out at Quinn.
Also, the floor was covered in broken glass; some of it had been melted and blunted by dragon fire but most of it was still there and sharp, ripe for cutting people with.
Creedy grabbed a likely looking plank of wood, white paint peeling off it, as he scanned the surrounding area. No sign of them, no sight, no sound. He stood still, trying to register any possible place they could be. There were enough trees and thick bushes for them to hide behind, Creedy could look for hours and still not find them.
It was Jimmy Mizzen’s sneezing that gave them away. They were in a small copse of trees, and Quinn was at the edge of a circle of boys, being pushed steadily back. The moment one of them broke, they’d all pile in on Quinn.
Creedy wasn’t sure what to do. If he went charging in, it’d probably just make it worse. No, better to pretend to be there on an errand. He still kept hold of the battered plank though, better to be safe than sorry.
Creedy pushed away the tree branch he’d been hiding behind. “Ah, there you are Quinn. Been looking for you everywhere. Come give me a hand.” Creedy turned to face the rest of them. “You don’t mind me stealing him, do you?”
Of course, they couldn’t say they minded so they let Quinn go. It was only a temporary solution, but at least it was working for now.
~~~~
Creedy walked Quinn back to the tractor garage.
“Were you trying to get yourself killed?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Quinn’s face betrayed nothing.
“Yeah, right. I suppose the Prof was just imagining that there was going to be a giant barney.”
Quinn had the decency to look mildly ashamed. “He wasn’t supposed to know. It wasn’t like they were going to win.”
“There were six of them!” Quinn stared at his shoes. “Don’t get into fights like that.”
“It’s easy enough for you to say, it wasn’t you that they were ... I didn’t ask for your help.”
“You don’t have to. What you do have to do is know that whatever they were saying was to get a reaction out of you. They wanted you come chasing after them.”
“I know.” Quinn had taken the bonnet off the tractor and was starting to fiddle with the engine to make himself feel better. He was pulling hard at the parts, taking his frustration out on them. “The things they were saying about the Professor though. He doesn’t deserve that. He’s a good man. The only person here that is.”
“He can look after himself.”
“No, he can’t. He’s got to pretend that he can’t hear them and it makes me so mad.” Quinn threw a spanner across the room, where it hit the red brick wall with a clang too dull to be satisfying. “I wanted to smack the stupid smiles off their smug, fat, little faces. Because he’s the one keeping us going and he shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of fucking nonsense.”
Creedy was shocked. He’d been on the terraces and got through school so it wasn’t like swearing bothered him, it was that he’d never heard Quinn anything harder than damn before, not even when he’d dropped a whole box of pistons on his foot.
“I’m sure it’ll be alright.”
“I don’t think it will be, and it’s all my fault,” Quinn had gone to pick up his spanner and put his head back into the tractor’s engine compartment. Whatever the reason he felt so guilty, he didn’t want to talk about it, and Creedy wasn’t going to push him, because all pushing would do would be to make him clam up tightly and totally, and Creedy got the feeling that once Quinn had decided on something, his mind stayed made up.
